Understanding energy storage

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Like residential solar and electric vehicles, energy storage is a type of distributed energy resource that is increasingly garnering attention from customers, utilities, and regulators. Energy storage may provide an economical way to improve electricity reliability, while lowering overall electricity cost. This technology can be used in many ways, from helping to reduce the impact of intermittent and distributed energy resources on system load to adding capacity that can defer or delay infrastructure investments.

This report, developed as part of the American Public Power Association's Public Power Forward initiative, reviews the various types of storage technologies, the services storage can provide a utility, and the economics of deploying energy storage. Read how public power utilities are implementing storage systems and how state and federal policies incentivize energy storage.